


The First Boy

by bookstorequeer



Series: The Velveteen Soldier and the Prodigal Son [4]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Foster Care, Gen, M/M, Male Homosexuality, References to Child Abuse, Secret Relationship, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2012-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstorequeer/pseuds/bookstorequeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was Alexander Fitzpatrick when he arrived in Montana, bruised and badly scared. He was Alex Lipton--legally changed on his eighteenth birthday as a present for his Papa Lip and to make Dad smile--when he left.</p><p>Here's a snapshot from Alex's life in Montana.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect to write more in this universe but I love these characters so much that I don't know if I'll ever be able to totally let them go.

He had known violence by the time he arrived in Montana. They recognized the flinches and the bruises like ricochets of nightmares upon waking. He shied away from them, watching hands for fists and faces for anger. But they called him "Alex" not "Alexander," even when their voices were heavy with disappointment and the bed was soft, sheets new, and frame strong. He slept well from the start, barely even waking when the door opened that first night. He felt someone looking in during the nighttime but the floor didn't creak any further in and eventually he grew used to the floor's groans and the settling of old walls.  
  
He liked being outside here, barely even minded when it turned cold and Ron wouldn't let him use the treehouse they'd spent months and the beginnings of trust building. That first winter they were tentative with each other, like a snowball could do more damage than they knew.  
  
Ron and Carwood moved like he shouldn't see the way they gravitated together. They were surprised like he didn't have a habit of watching them, together or separately. It took him weeks to put the pieces together into the puzzle it was and longer to work out if he should say something. It was the way that Dad--who had once been "Ron" but was more than that by now--kept twitching like he wanted to reach out to Papa Lip but kept remembering that he shouldn't, who finally made Alex say something. It was wrong, somehow, to see Dad so sad when Alex wasn't supposed to be looking.  
  
He was more nervous than he'd thought that he would be, trying to ignore the minute trembling that he thought he'd grown out of at the same time as bruises and bright, scared eyes. He looked at them both, sitting carefully apart on the armchair and the couch, separate until you noticed that their feet were touching ever so along the heels and toes. He didn't think they'd even noticed but he did. It would have made him smile if he wasn't too busy being unsure what it would mean or change to have this in the open between them all. He moved ahead anyway because he was a brave one, this new-found son of Carwood and Ron.  
  
"I know that you're queer," Alex blurted before turning bright red and rocking on his heels.  
  
They flushed and paled in turn, looking to each other before looking to him.  
  
"Alex--"  
  
Carwood's voice was shaken but Ron just stared at him. He'd grown used to that gaze and how deep it saw into him; it barely surprised him when Dad began to relax like his spine was made of ratchets.  
  
"It's okay, though."  
  
Dad was taller than him--although less so than when Alex had first found these men-- but he no longer flinched when Ron got close.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
Alex nodded and looked around Dad at his Papa, since it was just like Ron to stand between the other man and the rest of the world.  
  
"Really," he reassured, smiling at them both when Papa Lip slumped like a broken puppet back into the armchair. The youngest paratrooper leant into the arm suddenly around his shoulders and felt himself begin to unwind.  
  
"You're a good man," he heard in a whisper against his temple and knew that, like most of Dad's whispers, he was supposed to pretend that he hadn't heard it.  
  
"So are you," he mumbled instead against Papa Lip's shoulder when the other man joined them.  
  
They stayed like that, wrapped around each other and the words they'd managed to say about the secrets they didn't need to keep from each other, for longer than Alex had thought they might. None of them wanted to pull away.  
  
After that things were different but not always how he had expected. There were more smiles and soft touches. The first time he saw them kiss it gave him pause but only just, before he was stepping out of the kitchen to return with more of a clatter. The second time he rolled his eyes and kept on to the fridge. He didn't expect Papa to notice him reaching for the leftover cake but conceded easily enough when Dad nodded towards the cookie jar, behind the other man's back. Stolen cookies snuck up to the treehouse always tasted better than leftover cake, anyway, even if Alex had a feeling they didn't get away with half the things they thought they did.  
  
  
It wasn't what Alex had thought that he'd find when the familiar strangers of his hometown had bundled him up, with his bruises and a change of socks, and shipped him across the country. It was better.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I'll admit the summary doesn't really fit but I like the idea of Alex changing his last name to "Lipton" and wanted to put it in!


End file.
